What was the estate tax exemption before Trump's 2017 tax reform?
Executive summary
Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) enacted in December 2017, the federal estate tax exemption for an individual was roughly $5.49 million (adjusted for inflation) — a threshold established under prior law and indexed annually — and TCJA temporarily doubled that exemption beginning in 2018 [1] [2] [3].
1. What “before 2017” actually means in statutory terms
When reporters and analysts say “before Trump’s 2017 tax reform,” they refer to the estate-tax regime that existed going into 2018: a unified estate-and-gift tax exemption that had been set at roughly $5 million and then indexed for inflation, producing a 2017-level of about $5.49 million per individual (the pre-TCJA baseline) [1] [2]. That statutory baseline was a carryover of prior legislative adjustments (including the 2010 and 2012 changes) and included the portability rule allowing spouses to use unused exemption amounts [2].
2. How TCJA changed the number and why it matters
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 doubled that pre-TCJA exemption, raising the individual threshold to about $11.18–$11.2 million in 2018 (and to roughly $22.4–$22.8 million for married couples when combined), with the amounts indexed for inflation in subsequent years — a temporary change scheduled to sunset at the end of 2025 [3] [2] [4]. The practical effect of the doubling was to remove most estates from potential federal estate taxation and to change estate planning behavior, which is why many wealth-management and law firms warned clients to consider timing for large gifts [5] [6].
3. The expected reversion and numbers analysts used
Because TCJA’s increase was temporary, many analysts projected a reversion to the pre-2018 regime adjusted for inflation starting in 2026; those projections produced estimates near $7.0 million per person (roughly $14 million for married couples) for 2026 if Congress did nothing — a far lower bar than the post-TCJA, inflation-indexed amounts in the early 2020s [7] [5] [8]. Reports from government research arms and financial-advisory firms made the reversion estimate a central planning assumption for farms, businesses, and high-net-worth families [7] [6].
4. Conflicting incentives, agendas and subsequent developments
Law firms, financial planners and private banks emphasized urgency to “lock in” gifts before any sunset because their clients stood to benefit from the higher TCJA exemption; estate-planning advisory pieces pushed specific tactics, reflecting an industry incentive to advise action [5] [9]. Conversely, policy advocates urged allowing the TCJA expansion to expire to reduce inequality and increase revenue, a normative position grounded in research from groups such as Equitable Growth [10]. After 2017 there were further legislative developments in 2025 (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act) that changed the legal landscape by creating a new permanent $15 million exemption effective 2026, showing that the “before TCJA” baseline remains a reference point but not an immutable policy outcome [11] [12] [8].
5. Bottom line — the direct answer
The estate tax exemption before Trump’s 2017 tax reform was roughly $5.49 million per individual (the inflation‑adjusted 2017 level under pre-TCJA law); TCJA doubled that exemption beginning in 2018 to roughly $11.18–$11.2 million (with married‑couple equivalents about double) and indexed the amounts for inflation [1] [2] [3]. The rest of the reporting focuses on the temporary nature of TCJA’s increase, expected reversion figures (near $7 million by 2026 under prior law projections) and subsequent legislative fixes in 2025 that altered those future outcomes [7] [5] [11].